Social
networking is one of the most common activities on the internet.
There are millions of users around the world who go to sites like
Facebook each day to share their lives and information with friends,
family, and industry peers.

Facebook has been under a
microscope of scrutiny after the social network began making
significant changes to its privacy settings. The changes were
designed to make the network much more open to the public, but some
users, privacy groups, and even some in Washington thought the new
privacy policy made too much personal information available to third
parties.

Senator Charles E. Schumer sent
Facebook a letter in April asking it to reconsider the new
privacy policy -- Schumer stated he would be willing to introduce
legislation if privacy was not taken into account by Facebook. In
mid-May, Facebook executives held
a meeting to talk about privacy and the new privacy policy
is now being made public.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg made a
post to the official
Facebook Blog yesterday to outline the new privacy policy
and its changes. The main change to the privacy policy is to make
things similar for users to control.

Zuckerberg wrote,
"The number one thing we've heard is that there just needs to be
a simpler way to control your information. We've always offered a lot
of controls, but if you find them too hard to use then you won't feel
like you have control. Unless you feel in control, then you won't be
comfortable sharing and our service will be less useful for you. We
agree we need to improve this."

The focus of the new
privacy policy was aimed at three things: first a single control for
all users content, more powerful controls for basic information, and
an easy control to turn off all applications. Facebook will offer its
users a single control that lets them set who can view their content
(everyone, friends and friends of friends, or just friends).
Zuckerberg promises that setting takes only a few clicks. Perhaps the
best news about the feature is that it will apply to all new Facebook
products moving forward. That means users won’t have to worry about
changing settings each time something new is added to
Facebook.

Facebook has also reduced the amount of basic info
that is being made viewable to all users of the network. Users will
get new control over who can see their friends and pages.
Previously, those pages had to be public. Facebook recommends the
users leave them public or people won’t be able to find them
online. The third major change is that users can now elect to turn
off access to their information by third party applications or games.
That means if you don’t play games on Facebook you can turn that
off.

Zuckerberg
points out that you can still access the more complex and granular
privacy controls Facebook has always offered if desired. You can turn
of individual products as well, such as instant personalization,
which is one of the products that started the privacy
backlash.

Gartner Analyst Ray Valdes told Reuters that
the new policies should help make users concerned about privacy feel
more secure. He said, "But there are other voices that will
continue -- governments, public sector and privacy advocates. The
fundamental issues won't go away. They will reappear over time. Again
and again."

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This article is over a month old, voting and posting comments is disabled

But if you use Facebook for its intended use and not some popularity contest then it's all good. I've renewed some old friendship on FB, and use it solely to catch up with people & let people WHOM I know and am comfortable with sharing my personal information.

The "ultimate" privacy on Facebook is learning how to use it, first off.